Louisiana -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, American
"Oh, don't pay no 'tention to me. I jis studyin' how simple you an' yo'
pa is. You is bof de simplest somebody I eva come 'crost."
"You got to say plumb out w'at you mean, Aunt Dice," insisted the girl
doggedly, suspicious and alert now.
"Well, dat w'y I say you is simple," proclaimed the woman, slamming
down her iron on an inverted, battered pie pan, "jis like you says,
dey gwine put yo' pa's picture yonda in de picture paper. An' you know
w'at readin' dey gwine sot down on'neaf dat picture?" Martinette was
intensely attentive. "Dey gwine sot down on'neaf: 'Dis heah is one dem
low-down 'Cajuns o' Bayeh Têche!"'
The blood flowed from Martinette's face, leaving it deathly pale; in
another instant it came beating back in a quick flood, and her eyes
smarted with pain as if the tears that filled them had been fiery hot.
"I knows dem kine o' folks," continued Aunt Dicey, resuming her
interrupted ironing. "Dat stranger he got a li'le boy w'at ain't none
too big to spank. Dat li'le imp he come a hoppin' in heah yistiddy wid
a kine o' box on'neaf his arm. He say' 'Good mo'nin', madam. Will you
be so kine an' stan' jis like you is dah at yo' i'onin', an' lef me
take yo' picture?' I 'lowed I gwine make a picture outen him wid dis
heah flat-i'on, ef he don' d'ar hisse'f quick. An' he say he baig my
pardon fo' his intrudement. All dat kine o' talk to a ole nigga 'oman!
Dat plainly sho' he don' know his place."
"W'at you want 'im to say, Aunt Dice?" asked Martinette, with an effort
to conceal her distress.
"I wants 'im to come in heah an' say: 'Howdy, Aunt Dicey! will you be
so kine and go put on yo' noo calker dress an' yo' bonnit w'at you
w'ars to meetin', an' stan' 'side f'om dat i'onin'-boa'd w'ilse I
gwine take yo' photygraph.' Dat de way fo' a boy to talk w'at had good
raisin'."
Martinette had arisen, and began to take slow leave of the woman. She
turned at the cabin door to observe tentatively: "I reckon it's Wilkins
tells you how the folks they talk, yonda up to Mr. Hallet's."
She did not go to the store as she had intended, but walked with a
dragging step back to her home. The silver dollars clicked in her
pocket as she walked. She felt like flinging them across the field;
they seemed to her somehow the price of shame.
The sun had sunk, and twilight was settling like a silver beam upon
the bayou and enveloping the fields in a gray mist. Evariste, slim and
slouchy, was waiting for his daughter in the cabin door. He had lighted
a fire of sticks and branches, and placed the kettle before it to boil.
He met the girl with his slow, serious, questioning eyes, astonished to
see her empty-handed.
"How come you didn' bring nuttin' f'om de sto', Martinette?"
She entered and flung her gingham sun-bonnet upon a chair. "No, I didn'
go yonda;" and with sudden exasperation: "You got to go take back that
money; you mus' n' git no picture took."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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